[alucard77]

Hi All,

I finally got a TV with HDMI connections and I am going to retire my XBOX XBMC and upgrade to a PC based XBMC.

I have been looking at the different ION based HTPCs, specifically the Asrock ION 330. I know this system is a year old at this point, so I just wanted to find out what else you guys use and recommend.

Also, what things should I be aware of with these types of units? From what I read, these units cannot:

1- Run Flash based video
2- Pass through audio to your reciever

Is there anything else it is missing?

How well will they work with teh most taxing skin? Ideally I would love to run a 1080P skin on my 58" TV.

Would I be able to 1080 24p with this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[Necromancyr]

Hrm - the audio item is something I hadn't read before.

The Flash is an issue. I think if you run Windows you can get Flash 10.1 to do hardware acceleration, but I'm not 100% sure. The issue with this is that 1080p may take a bit of a hit because of the Windows related overhead.

I'm in the same boat and these are my big questions as well. (Flash in particular)

[alucard77]

From what I have been reading, these should do 1080P just fine. If I understand correctly, there should be a tweak to do 1080@24 just fine as well.

I read someone who said they over clocked and were able to play hulu and youtube. They did not mention using this on XBMC.

If I do this, I would do this XBMC Live single boot. Don't want to bother with this as a Win7 machine.

Now to figure out how to do audio pass through. I don't think this is possible.

Any new systems people would recommend over this. Hate to buy this and find out something better just came along. (Isn't that the way it always is with technology?)

[Hannes The Hun]

1- Run Flash based video
2- Pass through audio to your reciever

1- works perfectly fine in windows with flash 10.1 RC
2- works perfectly fine in linux and windows (SVN DSplayer builds)

for the "most taxing" skin: if you think about aeon or something like that, just make sure you get a dual core atom

[alucard77]

Haven't seen the DSPlayer build. Would XBMC Live not support this?

[Hannes The Hun]

SVN DSplayer build refers to windows

[>>X<<]

Haven't seen the DSPlayer build. Would XBMC Live not support this?

Asrock ION you get hardware acceleration (DXVA )using the latest windows builds but only in vista and win 7, the DSPlayer branch of XBMC is a directshow player like any other player you find in windows so you can use any external codec/filters you want but its integrated and behaves exactly the same as the standard XBMC

DSPlayer gives you a few more options as far as decoding I set up an asrock ION to use CoreAVC using CUDA instead of DXVA and it works very well

XBMC linux and XBMC Live will also give you hardware decoding

If you want to watch flash video 720p or 1080p outside XBMC then you will have to use a windows OS

DSPlayer

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=61355

[Necromancyr]

DSPlayer is in very heavy development now also and has some...oddities. If you're going to use it, just be aware you might have some annoyances as it continues to be developed.

I'm thinking about a dual-core ION then for myself. Just need to make sure I can output a format my older receiver can handle (PCM or certain DTS types).

Ffdshow can handle it so...guess I'm going with a Win7 build.

Now, what's the difference, from a functional perspective, of the DXVA capable XBMC build vs. DSPlayer? Anything major that would dictate one over the other (aside from DSplayer working on XP and XBMC DXVA not)

[>>X<<]

DSPlayer is in very heavy development now also and has some...oddities. If you're going to use it, just be aware you might have some annoyances as it continues to be developed.

I'm thinking about a dual-core ION then for myself. Just need to make sure I can output a format my older receiver can handle (PCM or certain DTS types).

Ffdshow can handle it so...guess I'm going with a Win7 build.

Now, what's the difference, from a functional perspective, of the DXVA capable XBMC build vs. DSPlayer? Anything major that would dictate one over the other (aside from DSplayer working on XP and XBMC DXVA not)

As I said above the advantage of DSPlayer is you can use any directshow filters/codecs you want for both video and audio, as I pointed out I didn't set up DSPlayer to use DXVA I used CoreAVC using CUDA I also use a graphic on the audio and as the Asrock has a DTS processor everything comes out in DTS

As for the stability of DSPlayer its like nightly builds some are stable some aren't but from my experience most are, I've been using a build without any problems for some time even my parents have been running it for 7 months without problems

[Necromancyr]

X: Ah ok. I wasn't thinking and didn't realize that the filters/codecs would be the big plus. I guess from an audio perspective, that makes sense. Video...if it plays it plays. Does an ION handle the filters in hardware as well? Not clear on if a system of this type would handle filtering video (at least HD video) very well.

And it may be the combination of XBMC instability in some builds combined with DSPlayer issues, but the version I'm currently running seems to work well while the previous had all the FF/Rew issues and stuttered frequently.

(Then again, my current setup has very low level video acceleration available so...who knows )

[>>X<<]

X: Ah ok. I wasn't thinking and didn't realize that the filters/codecs would be the big plus. I guess from an audio perspective, that makes sense. Video...if it plays it plays. Does an ION handle the filters in hardware as well? Not clear on if a system of this type would handle filtering video (at least HD video) very well.

And it may be the combination of XBMC instability in some builds combined with DSPlayer issues, but the version I'm currently running seems to work well while the previous had all the FF/Rew issues and stuttered frequently.

(Then again, my current setup has very low level video acceleration available so...who knows )

DSPlayer does have PixelShader resizer already added any other filters for video would be software like those found in ffdshow, I personally don't see the need to filter HD even 720p viewed on a 1080p screen

I'm pretty sure a dual core atom could handle software upscaling/filtering of SD using FFdshow although I haven't tried so don't quote me on that, I don't have it here to test as I bought it for my parents they only have a 720p screen and its a great picture without any extra scaling etc

If you don't have any special reasons for using DSPlayer then you might as well stick with the standard build XBMC

[jonask]

Hi

I’m running XBMC on ASRock ION 330 HT, win 7 and I am very pleased.

Here is something you can’t read from the specifications:

Had to make a small modification because I am a little itchy about noise. Installed a Fan Mate 2 (50 DKK about 8 US $) to reduce the noise from the CPU fan, now I can hardly hear it.

The WIFI connection to my router (only g-standard) works perfect. The router is located one floor above the AS-Box still the download speed is 7 Mbps (on a 20 Mbps line).

For playing 1080p movies read here: works fine.

If you are the lucky owner of an iPhone install the XBMC Remote app from iTunes, works perfect (not as fast as Sonos but almost, and it got a lot more features).

Cheers
/Jonas

[>>X<<]

For playing 1080p movies read here: works fine.

You don't need an external player for 720p/1080p as XBMC supports DXVA2 under vista and win7

DSPlayer supports DXVA using a number of codecs including the ones from MPC-HC or you can use CoreAVC (CUDA)

Why use an external player and lose XBMC OSD